Girl Banned From School Because of Her Hair Color

British teen Emily Reay has been barred from her school until she tones down her hair to a more “natural” hue. (Photo: Louise Porter/Cater News Agency)

Seventeen-year-old Emily Reay is seeing red after she says that her school announced that she isn’t welcome back until she dyes her flame-colored hair a more “natural” hue.

“I was very angry at first,” the naturally auburn-haired student, enrolled at Trinity School in Cumbria, England, tells the UK Telegraph. “And then [I] burst into tears. I’ve had the same color for the past three years, and nobody at school has commented on it.“ (Reay didn’t immediately respond to Yahoo Parenting’s request for comment).

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Reay, who lives in Carlisle, was given the news after her Easter vacation on April 13. "I was told my hair had been a bone of contention since the beginning of the school year, but they had let it slip up until now,” she says. "But the laughable thing is my hair was brighter than this on prom night, and I won best hairstyle award."

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Her parents, Julie and Andy Reay, say they visited the school to talk with Emily’s teachers and were told their daughter had to change or tone down the shade by Monday or she’d be banned from the building. “The school’s uniform policy clearly states no unnatural hair colors, like blue or green,” Julie says. “Is ginger not a natural hair color?"

Not, apparently, in such a radiant shade as Reay’s. “Trinity School…students are role models for the rest of the school,” Reay’s head teacher, Andrew Winter, writes in a statement to The Telegraph. “We have a policy of maintaining high standards…Students are issued with information about what is acceptable or unacceptable at the start of the academic year. The vast majority of parents are very keen on our high standards."

This shocking ban is just the latest outrageous school rule making headlines. In September, yoga pants, skinny jeans and leggings were banned for female students at Devils Lake High School in North Dakota because officials ruled the look “too distracting.” In March a 16-year-old in Texas was prohibited from asking her friend prom because they are both gay. That same month, a London elementary school barred kids from watching a solar eclipse during class, reportedly for religious reasons. And in the past, students have even been banned from wearing American flag T-Shirts on Cinco de Mayo.

Reay’s fight isn’t about her making a style statement though, she says. The student insists that she’s known as that “young ginger singer” in her community. “For me it is all about confidence,” she tells the Irish Mirror. “If I had to dye my hair brown, I would lose that."

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